David, I was answering both to NooM and to you on the same post, so don't be scared about some term.
I don't understand what's your target, in general, but using a Netduino is quite simple. The new born, Netduino Plus 2, is much more powerful than the old versions, but it has clearly some problem. If you wish to take practice I recommend the old one (standard or Plus). I'm using the Plus since over one year and it works pretty well.
You should only bear in mind two-three things:
- the ram available is millions of times less than a normal pc, thus you must use it carefully.
- the speed is limited by the huge amount of work which has to do the cpu: it seems absurd, but if you were trying the same tasks in C++, you would get the same result.
- you are running managed code: even on a pc you would have hard time for fine-tuning timings and similar low-level stuffs.
I believe it's an instructive playground, which helps any programmer to deal better with the machine. I am not a computer scientists, but I think that all that "waste of resources" on the today's pcs bring us to lose the perception of the real low-level problems.
SPI and other libraries.
The SPI is the most primitive object exposed by the framework, which wraps the real physical logic. You could see the "SPI" object as it were a "Socket": instead of using the Ethernet/IP, it uses a very simple shift-register for the data exchange. Really, I can't think to a simpler way for exchanging data.
Many users created their own "helpers" around the already exposed APIs. The NetMF Toolbox is perhaps the most famous, although I would not recommend to overload a small experimental program with ton of classes. Instead, you should deal with very easy steps, without any "foreign" elaboration. Of course, when you'll be experienced enough, the helpers/libraries are welcome.
It is to you decide on how to move. I believe here are many users ready for helping new friends. So, just ask what it's unclear or is not working.
Cheers
